One PCOS technician for each polling center

CEBU, Philippines - Amid reports that the number of technicians for the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines was allegedly reduced, it is projected that there will one technician per polling center who will be assigned for Cebu Province in the May 2010 elections, said one election officer.

Lito Arquillano, San Francisco, Camotes Island, election officer said that there will be at least one technician for each of the 82,200 PCOS machines ordered by the poll body for the coming elections in May.

It was earlier projected that there will be one technician for every precinct and a supervisor for every 10 precincts in Cebu.

After the clustering process, there will be 1,181 polling centers with one principal technician assigned to each center.

According to a news source, there was a reduction of 275 principal technicians from the previous 1,456 technicians.

The number of back-up technicians was also reduced from 145 technicians to 141.

But the source, who refused to be named, expressed apprehensions that the reduction of technicians might lead to a failure of elections.

The news source added that considering if every polling center has one PCOS technician, it would be difficult for a technician to accommodate the problems that the machine or the voter encounters on Election Day.

However, Arquillano said given that one polling center is composed of many precincts, he said that it would be “their task to handle” any breakdown of PCOS machines.

He said they have yet to meet with the assigned technicians and supervisors for Cebu Province.

“Wala pa noon mi magkita aning mga technicians,” he said.

SmartMatic-TIM earlier announced that of the 48,000 technical personnel to be deployed across the country to assist the BEIs on Election Day, 42,000 will be assigned to the polling places to help fix malfunctioning PCOS machines and transmission devices.

Lionel Marco Castillano, Comelec Cebu provincial supervisor earlier said that there will be six servers at the receiving end of the transmission from the PCOS namely: the city or municipal Board of Canvassers, central Comelec server, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas, the dominant majority party, dominant minority party and the citizen’s arm.

He said the PCOS machine will be made to initialize operations before voting starts on May 10, to ensure PCOS machines are not pre-programmed.

The process, according to him, is that the PCOS machines will be made to report a “zero” output indicating that the machine has not been used or voted upon. It will be done twice too, he said.

Moreover, the technicians, according to Comelec report have been required to issue an affidavit stating that they are not related to any candidate up to the fourth degree to ensure that the technical support personnel have no links to political families or parties.

The technicians are expected to be present in their respective stations at least an hour before actual elections, take charge of technician’s kit, validate all equipment and assist the Board of Election Inspectors in the installation and the dismantling of the machines.

The technicians are also tasked to answer questions and assist voters on correct procedures but Comelec said that these technicians can only go near a PCOS machine if asked by the voter.

Also, Comelec explained that the technicians will not be able to influence voters as they are allowed to enter the precinct only if the voting machine needs fixing.

The technicians will also receive custody of the PCOS machines at the end of the voting.